In Life and Death
by HermioneGranger1960
Summary: Rey returns to Jakku to face her past and future.
1. Arrive

**Hi everyone!**

 **I just wanted to say thank you for all your responses on my stories, it really means a lot to me.**

 **This story comes from a post on tumblr by magnatolvan that you can see here: post/169356970504/i-need-rey-to-go-back-to-jakku-in-episode-9-i**

 **This'll be in two parts.**

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If you asked anyone about Rey, they inevitably spoke of her bravery. Those who fought beside her spoke to their enthralled audiences of how she rushed headfirst into battle, lightsaber at the ready, a battle cry on her lips. She'd become something of a legend among those who were a part of the war, be it the Resistance or First Order. Rey was capable of facing down an entire army, yet she was wholly incapable of facing her own demons.

Rey chewed on her lip as she peered out of the Millennium Falcon's cockpit, the engines humming idly after she aborted the atmosphere entry sequence.

The war ended over a year ago. The First Order was strong and relentless and Rey was often forced to question whether they would survive or not. It had taken a month for the entire organization to come crumbling down. Rey knew by the silent bond he'd been involved - there was no other explanation for the total and abrupt destruction of such a vast enterprise. She'd felt the connection thin until one morning she could no longer feel him. That moment nearly coincided with the fall of the First Order.

This moment, however, had been years in the making. Rey had spent her entire life idealizing those who abandoned her, staring up into the beautiful blue sky after scavenging for hours in the blistering sun, watching ships take off and longing to climb aboard one. Rey watched, knowing she had to remain behind. She had to. If she wandered all over the galaxy, how would they find her?

Jakku. Her home.

When referencing Jakku as her home, Rey only ever saw it as the place she'd spent most of her life. That's the term people used when explaining where they were from, yet she could see in their eyes that most were proud of where they began. She'd heard dozens of people glowing with pride as they talked of their childhoods. Rey never said a word, lingering in the background. She knew all of the nooks and crannies of Jakku, understood the seedy underbelly of the trading posts – she recognized that people were commodities just as her packets of rations were. Rey understood that she hadn't had a real childhood. Children didn't toil beneath the excruciating heat until the sun set, hoping they'd collected enough junk to survive another day.

Leaning over with a deep breath, Rey began to entry sequence once more. Her eyes flickered momentarily to the empty co-pilot seat. She'd asked Chewy to stay behind for this trip. He grumbled, but eventually relented.

The blinding sun was all Rey could see as the ship shuttered and groaned beneath the pressure. When the sandy landscape came into view, Rey's heart jumped into her throat. It was amazing that after so many years away she could recall every detail of the place, down to how the sand chaffed her skin after working its way through layers of clothing.

There was a smattering of outposts across the desert and Rey made her way to Nimma. She'd always traded there for as unfair as Unkar was, the others were even worse.

Rey landed close to the trading post – closer than the guards liked, based on their angry growls directed at her as she stepped from the Falcon. She simply allowed her robes to fall open, letting the glare of the sun strike the hilt of her saber. Abruptly the snarls ended, feet shifted unsurely in the sand, wariness pulsed from them in waves.

Recognition washed over those who were huddled beneath tents, scrubbing parts until their fingers bled, trying to make them shine in an attempt to gain half a ration more. Rey's eyes brushed across their worn faces, sensing their crushed spirits. One face stopped her for a fraction of a second. And old woman – the same old woman she'd studied the day BB-8 rolled into her life sat there, unabashedly staring at her. The day Rey had first noticed her; she could remember the motions of her brush stopping as she studied the woman's wrinkles, wondering if that would be her. Would she spend her life here as this woman had? Would she still be working when her bones ached and her spine bent?

The woman was nearly a skeleton now. Rey speculated how she could have survived this long with the amount of work one had to do simply to eat. Without a doubt Rey knew the woman was nearing the end of her life. The elderly, young, and ill never did flourish there. It wasn't possible. If you were unable to scavenge, you were unable to live.

All work had stopped as fierce whispers and tittering rumbled beneath the soiled canvas flapping in the hot breeze. Rey watched as word of her return swept down the line. She had planned to stride into Plutt's with her head held high, demands flowing powerfully from her lips but the whispers would reach him in a few moments. Rey had spent her whole life going to him. This time, he would come to her.

As if he'd been prompted, Unkar Plutt's hulking body exploded from his abode, slimy and unwashed as always. Rey found herself sneering at the mess, resentful that she once had to grovel to such a being. He was barreling towards her, raging and gesturing towards the Millennium Falcon. Rey ignored him. Her fury was building. With a confidence she'd never displayed before while in his presence, Rey marched forward, yanking her lightsaber free. The purple blade ignited with a screech, settling at the level of his flat nose. Plutt was forced to skid to a stop lest he impale himself.

Rey was silent. She wanted him to see her, see the girl he had control over since she was old enough to scavenge. She wanted him to know that she had the power now, not him and his leering smile and skin-crawling suggestions. Rey needed him to see the rage in her eyes. She needed him to understand that she could cut him down with a flick of her wrist and not a grain of remorse would she feel. Rey wanted him to remember this exact moment for the rest of his miserable life.

Time crawled to a halt for just a second. The galaxy seemed to draw a breath and hold it.

A quiver. A flash in a pair of beady eyes. _Fear._

Rey wanted to smirk when she saw him tremble, but her anger was too great.

"What were their names?" she spoke softly but her voice was hard as steel.

For the first time in her life Rey witnessed Plutt at a loss for words. She suspected none of his workers had ever spoken to him with such force before. If they had, he would have withheld rations for at least a week.

"Their names!" Rey demanded.

"Nineva and Tucrola." His voice wobbled.

"Their graves."

His eyes flickered to her lightsaber for a brief moment before he met her gaze again. The hum of the blade sounded like a roar between them. Rey twisted her wrist slightly, a thinly veiled threat.

"The pauper's graveyard."

Rey fixed him with a long stare before deactivating her lightsaber and deliberately returning it to her belt. She turned but didn't step forward.

"You will return to your post and give each person who approaches you enough rations to eat three meals a day for a week, no matter what they trade in."

A pause.

"I will return to my post and give each person who approaches me enough rations to eat three meals a day for a week, no matter what they trade in." Plutt responded absently.

Without a glance Rey headed into the heat of Jakku for what she hoped was the final time.


	2. Depart

**Part two! Don't forget to review :)**

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The pauper's graveyard was deliberately placed in the middle of nowhere and away from foot traffic. When Unkar assumed power over Niima, he forced people to bury the dead where the gazes of his scavengers would not see them. He maintained that seeing the dead lowered moral and without moral, his sales suffered. Rey had often watched groups lugging cloth-wrapped bodies over a ridge and vanishing over the other side. A few times she'd journeyed in the direction of the graveyard. One time she found herself in the middle – having cut across the sand as a short cut to the wreck she was stripping, Rey was suddenly standing in a sea of eclectic objects protruding from the sand. It was only when she saw symbols etched crudely into a piece of scrap metal that she realized where she was standing.

She'd never gone back.

Rey knew from her earliest days scavenging that her future was beneath that sand. If no one came for her, strangers would inter her body in the unforgiving grit. No one would miss her. No one would mourn her.

The heat was oppressive as she journeyed across the sand, feeling the intrusive grains in her shoes already. People stared at her. A few let their carefully gathered treasures fall limp into the sand. Rey didn't return their gazes. She was focused on the steadily building tension in her chest. What would she find when she reached the crest of the sand ridge looming in the distance? The hot breeze whipped at her robes – an illogical choice, she knew, but her robes were akin to battle armor. Rarely did she move about without them.

When she reached the crest of the ridge, Rey stopped for a moment, gathering herself. It had been years since she'd seen the graveyard and the few times she did see it, Rey barely registered the details. Death was a way of life here. Every day people were buried in the sand, some directly where they fell if their comrades couldn't carry them back. Death wasn't a shock to anyone at Niima Outpost. It would have been impossible to carry on if they stopped to mourn each of their fellow workers – they would never stop mourning.

Drawing her shoulders back with a deep breath, Rey stepped up onto the ridge.

For a moment she couldn't see anything – a large gust of wind had kicked up sand and a hazy cloud hung in the air. The moment the wind died, the sand skittered back to the ground.

The enormity of the graveyard stunned her. She hadn't remembered how expansive it was. She hadn't realized so many had lost their lives in such brutal conditions.

Her parents.

Rey descended the ridge, her feet sinking into the sand as she struggled into the valley. Halfway down a voice in her head told her this was a useless exercise. The odds of their graves being marked, let alone still there were astronomical.

When the landscape leveled out, Rey determinedly stepped forward. She'd avoided coming here, of thinking of her parents for years on end. Even after the throne room, when she'd admitted out loud what she'd always dreaded, Rey still didn't think about them. It was too hard to admit you were unwanted by the people who should have loved you most. It was too ugly a thing to face. Instead she threw herself into her work, into her friendships. She was not leaving this godforsaken planet until she had some answers to the questions that plagued her for years.

She'd started methodically – walking up and down definitive rows – in an effort to stem the rising panic and hopelessness. Markers were knocked down, buried, forgotten. People buried atop people. The sand kicked up once more, this time into her eyes that were already blurry with tears.

Frantically she searched now, looking but not seeing, already knowing.

Both in life and death, they were lost.

With a sob born from the wreckage of her lingering hope, Rey fell, her hands and knees plunging into the burning sand. She let the tears come, finally. Years of pain and loneliness that she'd carefully packed away burst through, and Rey let her emotions rule. She knew that finding their graves would mean little. They had never come for her. She would never meet them. What she wanted was closure. She wanted a place that she could point and say "There. There are my parents." Now she had nothing. The sands of Jakku had stripped her of everything again.

Rey hadn't heard him, but she knew Ben was there even before he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her against his broad chest. She fell against him, unable to support herself any longer. Her entire life came down to this moment and the realization that the road ended here. In the back of her mind was always the nagging thought of her parents. Even when she was on missions for the Resistance, she never lost sight of the fact she'd have to look for them. Her missions were over. Her questions unanswered.

What was she to do now?

Ben was whispering softly into her hair, apologies, too many to count. They poured from his lips, choking him, her name punctuating his pleas. She heard him ask for forgiveness for his behavior after Snoke, apologize for not realizing what he needed sooner. He was sorry for her parents, what they had done to her and how even in death they could still hurt her. Rey let him speak – his voice was a balm to her frayed nerves.

She wasn't sure how long they sat there, slumped in the sand together. Rey had closed her eyes, listening to the wild rhythm of his heart slow to a confident and steady thump beneath her ear, in tandem with her own.

"I thought you closed the bond." Rey croaked, still amazed at his solidity against her cheek.

"This isn't the bond."

Rey opened her eyes even though her shock momentarily blinded her. Carefully she pulled away so she could see his face. She had to see his eyes. Ben's voice was always careful. Contained. Restrained. His eyes couldn't lie. It was one of the first things she discovered through their bond.

She learned to trust his eyes over his words.

Rey slid her hand upward until the coarse pads of her fingers traced the column of his throat. He didn't utter a word of explanation, but Rey knew all from his eyes and small pulses of images he fed through the bond. He'd placed a watcher on Jakku who was to inform him the moment the Falcon was spotted and if Rey was present. Ben had been patrolling nearby planets, keeping the peace quietly and unobtrusively.

 _I knew you would come back, when you were ready. I didn't want you to face it alone._

Rey's eyes filled with tears again. She was touched that he waited for her to come to terms with what must be done. He had made sure to remain near so he could be there when she needed him. Rey wiped her eyes on her sleeves.

Ben stood fluidly and offered his hand.

Ungloved.

Rey knew their thoughts ran parallel. The last time he'd offered his hand, he'd worn a glove. A simple article of clothing that spoke volumes, symbolizing the part of him that wasn't quite ready to relinquish his newly found power.

Now he stood offering his hand once more. There was no malice in the gesture, no enticing her to join him. It was a gesture that meant nothing, yet everything. The sense of belonging began to grow again just as it did when their bond first opened. This time was different. They were on the same page now, acknowledging that they were both Light and Dark, unwilling to force the other to choose.

Rey reached up and let her small hand vanish in his grasp.

When she stood, Rey led him to a familiar path. He saw nothing but sand, but for Rey, each dune was a marker. Side by side they walked in the unceasing heat, hands clasped even though they were slick with perspiration. Her eyes flickered to his profile for a moment before sliding away as the AT-AT came into view.

The metal body looked exactly as it always had after a long day.

Rey released his hand as she ducked inside, remembering all the times she cracked her head against the opening when she started to grow. Ben has to contort himself even farther to fit.

When first setting out on her own, Rey purposely wandered far off the beaten track in search of a place to live. The farther away she was, the less likely someone would try and rob her when she was away. This accounted for the fact that her hovel remained just as she left it so many years ago. Sand had to be brushed off of everything.

Her eyes tracked him in the dim light. He turned slowly, taking in every detail. His attention was immediately drawn to the tally marks. There are thousands of little etchings littering the surface of the metal wall which he was now tracing with his pale finger. Rey briefly reflected on how useless the task was, but how each time she worked another tally onto the wall, a small bit of hope flared inside her. She swallowed deeply and looked away.

"I've never had anyone else here," she spoke softly into the echoing hull. "It was just me."

"It's just _us_ now." He responds just as softly.

When he turns around to look at her, she's already there, wrapping her arms around him.

* * *

They crawled into her hammock, the one she painstakingly weaved when she first found the AT-AT. It kept her safely off the ground and out of the constantly collecting sand. He hadn't objected when she'd asked for his shoes, sticking them up high with her own and away from the deadly creatures that emerged from the sand once the light faded. They were wrapped up in one another tightly enough that neither cared the small hammock was made to fit one person comfortably.

Night came fast and soon the heat of the day was replaced by a chill Rey never acclimated to. Ben wrapped them in his robes and Rey buried her face against his chest, soothed by the motion of his hands running along her back.

It was always a struggle to sleep at night, no matter how exhausted she way. There was always a constant danger lingering – both from scavengers and the environment. Even when she did sleep, it wasn't anything but a light doze. The smallest sound would wake her. On this night, her last night on Jakku, Rey slept deeply. The AT-AT creaked in the heavy desert winds, but Rey never once stirred in Ben's arms.

When she awoke the next morning, Rey was disoriented. For half a second she believed yesterday was a dream, but Ben's solid form beside her banished the thought from her mind.

They gingerly crawled from the hammock, stretching as much as they could in the confined space. As Ben slid his robes back on, Rey peered around.

She'd planned to come back to this metal beast, even as she fled the First Order with Finn. Rey often wondered about her belongings – worthless to other people but priceless to her. The small flower. The rebel pilot. She'd wanted these things back. They were the only material belongings she had. Rey found the helmet she used to wear when pretending she was anywhere but here, and scooped in her possessions. Ben watched.

They departed together, hand in hand, just as they arrived. Rey stopped for just a moment, silently bidding goodbye to the hunk of junk she used to live in, where her speeder was still stored (she checked). The trek to Niima Outpost was extensive and strenuous, but Rey was ready.

Silence fell through the tents and meager marketplace when they entered. Neither noticed nor cared. The Falcon loomed in the distance, beckoning them away.

While heading towards the ship, Rey paused and released Ben's hand. She moved into a tent where a family was carefully tending to their early morning haul, polishing each piece determinedly. They were staring at her, but Rey only had eyes for the small girl. Large brown eyes peered up with something akin to worship. Rey lowered herself until she was eye to eye with the young girl who was leaning away, uncertain.

Rey extended the helmet to her.

The girls face broke out into a grin, her little hands eagerly accepting the gift. Rey smiled and ruffled her hair before standing and striding back to where Ben stood.

 _Let the past die. Kill it if you have to._

Rey stepped into his arms, lifting her face to his. The bond abruptly flooded between them and she could feel how tightly he'd been holding on. Their kiss wasn't an all-consuming inferno that Rey always expected, secretly longed for, and knew was just on the horizon. The long drawn out embrace was one of promise. Commitment. They were terminating this chapter of their lives, sealing it closed and storing it away.

Their future began in that moment. Their future began with each other.


End file.
